Top 25 ranking, record-breaking win for seniors among goals vs. Arkansas State

DEKALB, Ill. — A month has passed since Northern Illinois last played, but the Mid-American Conference champions will be riding an eight-game winning streak into Sunday night's GoDaddy.com Bowl against Arkansas State in Mobile, Ala.

"It's a chance to showcase NIU football as the only game on TV (ESPN) that night," coach Dave Doeren said Tuesday after practice at the DeKalb Recreation Center. "Our guys want to be on the national stage, and they have put themselves in the situation that if we win the game, we can be a Top 25 team, hopefully."

NIU, playing in its fourth consecutive bowl game, was ranked 26th in the final regular-season coaches poll and 30th in the Associated Press poll.

"Our senior class, if we win the game, would be the all-time winningest class in school history (with 35)," Doeren said. "And that's a big honor for them to have if they can get it."

Nineteen seniors will play their last game for the Huskies (10-3), who will face a challenge in Arkansas State (10-2), champion of the Sun Belt Conference.

"Arkansas State is one of the best teams in the country at our level," Doeren said. "They have won nine in a row. They have had a double-digit lead in their last five games in the first quarter. They outscored their opponent in the fourth quarter like 100-2. They are playing extremely well."

David Gunn is serving as interim coach after Hugh Freeze left to become head coach at Mississippi. The Red Wolves' new coach will be former Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn.

"They have a quarterback (Ryan Aplin) who was their conference player of the year and a receiver (Dwayne Frampton) with 90 catches, so this is the best team we've played since Wisconsin," Doeren said. "It's the most talented and skilled group we've seen since Toledo … with or without their (original) coaching staff."

This time last year, the Huskies were in transition as coach Jerry Kill announced he was leaving NIU to take the Minnesota job. NIU defeated Fresno State 40-17 in the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Idaho.

"This experience is completely different from last year," quarterback Chandler Harnish said. "It's different from the fact that we won the MAC championship (this season). We got just about every goal on our team board that we could this year.

"To win the MAC championship was huge for this program. There was a lot of pain here from the past 28 years of coming so close and losing such tough heartbreakers to Toledo and to Miami of Ohio and Akron. To finally break through the ice and do that for this program … so many (former) players have gotten back to us and said, 'Man, thank you, and we feel like we're a part of it.'

"Our Huskie family was huge. There is a lot of motivation for this game."